Vancouver-based Wendy Tsao started Child's Own Studio, a home-based toy design studio with a twist: Tsao doesn't design the toys. Children do. Tsao's brilliant insight was to create one-off toys for a child modeled exactly on a drawing done by that child.
[Children's drawings are] a wonderful expression of childhood [and] the starting point of the collaborative project. Details and color choices are reproduced as closely as possible so that the stuffed toy that arrives in the mail is immediately recognizable to the child who designed it. It's a fun, rewarding process, and kids love seeing their drawings come alive.
While you can see how it's do-able enough to create a toy from a drawing by an artistically-gifted child, like these...
...you've gotta be impressed when Tsao pulls off the more abstract drawings, like these:
Seeing those latter three makes me reflect, with shame, on times in the past when I received a less-than-clear sketch from the head designer on the job and privately complained about being asked to realize it in CAD. It looks as if Tsao could probably pull off plush Picassos. And with a few hundred creations under her belt and counting, she won't be running out of business anytime soon.
Kids playing with their Clump-O-Lumps creations. All images courtesy Knock Knock.Mix and match, design and customize. We can do it cars, with phones, with outfits. Why not with stuffed toys? Clump-O-Lumps, a new line toys out of gift and stationery company Knock Knock, features mix-and-match plush dolls designed for...
The Keyano repurposes a keyboard into a musical instrument.We buy them, we love them, we use them, and then we toss them. Our gadgets are ever present until they're not, and while it would be nice if we could just drop them into a black hole, our gadgets end up...
Maybe you'd like your child to show an interest in art, but you also want him or her running around outside, getting the fresh air and exercise that kids need. How do you combine these two things?Washington-based Scott Baumann, who founded the product design firm Procreate Brands, has created a...
A beautiful short film about Caine's Arcade, a 9-year-old's DIY cardboard dream arcade in East Los Angeles. Built out of his dad's used auto parts boxes, packing tape and pure imagination, it's a feel-good short that reminds us of the magic of making.via boingboing
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